Got Taphophilia?

Sounds like an exotic disease but actually taphophilia is the love of old monuments and cemetery statuary, tombstones, memorials and well, stones! Oak Grove Cemetery, the final resting place for so many players in the Borden saga, is a true mid-nineteenth century garden cemetery inspired by Cambridge’s Mount Auburn, near Boston. The nearly 100 acres of winding pathways is a taphophile’s delight of heavily carved marble and granite, full of Victorian symbolism. Below is a representative of the personification of sorrow clutching a wreath, clinging to the Cross, the holding tomb where the Bordens were held for a week while awaiting a second autopsy which was done on the cemetery grounds, and the marker for Abby Borden’s half-sister, Mrs. Whitehead, whose Fourth Street house caused so much tension between Lizzie and Emma and her father. Click on photos for a larger view. (c) All rights reserved.